


The Runaway Dinosaur

by quickwest



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, tornado twins - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7333540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickwest/pseuds/quickwest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry comes home after a long day, Iris is worn out on the couch and he goes to check on the twins to read them a bedtime story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Runaway Dinosaur

Barry came home late that evening after a long day of work at CCPD. He was busy running labs, testing fingerprints, while working with Cisco to take down a metahuman.

Opening the door to his house, he smiled when he saw Iris, his wife sitting on the couch, legs stretched across the seats with a glass of wine in hand.

“Hey,” he greeted, putting his keys on the coffee table behind the couch and taking off his jacket. 

“Hey,” she turned and smiled as he leaned in to kiss her, “you hungry? There’s dinner in the fridge.” 

“No, I had some food while I was at the lab,” he replied as he walked over to the opposite end of the couch, lifted her feet and sat down.

Her legs rested on his lap when he started to rub her feet. He noticed she was still dressed in the clothes she went to work in this morning, and a worry line stretched across her forehead that accompanied the frown on her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she sighed, but a hint of a smile tugged on her lips, “just a long day at work after that metahuman attack, the newsroom was hectic, and I had articles on my desk all afternoon, and then getting the kids to eat their vegetables at dinner was a battle. Don convinced Dawn to go on a strike against veggies, so I did the whole ‘if you eat all your food, you’ll get extra dessert’ thing.“

If anyone else heard that sentence, then they would be all sorts of confused but Barry laughed knowing that it meant that his son, Don convinced his sister, Dawn to go on a strike.

Iris joined him in his laughter, and said, “I’m really doing this mom thing right.”

“You are,” he replied. Barry knew that she said it in a self deprecating manner but he really meant it when he said she was a good mom, “Where are the twins? Sleeping?”

Just as he posed the question a noise came from upstairs, a thud then his daughter giggling. Iris sighed and put the wine on the coffee table in front of her.

“They should be sleeping,” she informed, and started to get up, but Barry stopped her.

“Let me do it,” he said and sped upstairs.

On the occasional nights that Barry came home late, he would speed up to their room to quietly check on them. Sometimes they would be asleep, but others they were playing games; their favorite was using their superspeed to play tag. That’s what it seemed like now when he heard gushes of wind behind their closed door and laughter. Barry smiled and ran into the room. The kids’ laughter only became stronger when he scooped both of them up and tucked them both into their own beds.

“Dad!” Don exclaimed.

“Aren’t you two supposed to be sleeping?” Barry asked.

“We couldn’t sleep,“ Don shrugged and just in that small action, Barry saw so much of Iris in his son.

“Tell us a story,” Dawn perked up from being tucked under her blanket, pushing her purple framed glasses up the bridge of her nose.

He looked around the room for the bookshelf that was filled with children’s stories about princesses and fairytales, and wild animals, robots, and normal kids who loved to draw, dance, play sports, and sing. There was one in particular that he wanted. He grinned when he spotted it, ran over to the shelf and grabbed it, then sat in Dawn’s bed, gesturing for Don to join them.

Sitting sandwiched between the twins, Barry’s eyes lit up as Dawn rested her head into his arm, and Don tucked himself under his father’s arm and asked what book it was. 

“The Runaway Dinosaur,” Barry answered, running a hand through Dawn’s thick, dark brown, curly hair. “This was my favorite book when I was a kid like you.” 

“Once there was this little dinosaur called Maiasaur who lived with his mother,” Barry started.

“Can I be the little dinosaur?” Dawn interrupted, excitedly to which Don fought back saying he wanted to be the little dinosaur. Usually when they read books, they would each pick a character to be.

“The both of you can be the little dinosaur,” Barry replied simply and continued, modifying the tale so that it referred to the maiasaur as ‘maiasaurs,’ “One day he told his mother, ‘I wish i was special like the other dinosaurs. If I were a T-Rex, I could chomp with my ferocious teeth.’ ‘But if you were a T-Rex,’ said his mother, ‘how would you hug me with your tiny, little arms?’” Both kids giggled looking at an illustration of a T-Rex attempting to hug a bigger T-Rex.

“’I wish I were an apatosaurus,’ said the little dinosaur, ‘so with my long neck I could see high above the tree tops,’” he continued, “‘But if you were an apatosaurus,’ said his mother, ‘how would you hear me in the tree tops when I told you I love you?’”

Barry kept reading as noticed that his kids were starting to get tired. Dawn yawned and her eyes became droopy. Don was suddenly so quiet that Barry thought he had already fallen asleep, but Barry looked down and saw that Don was so focused on the book. He didn’t notice Iris appeared in the doorway and listened in, smiling as he finished off the story.

“’What makes you so special, little maiasaur,’ said his mother, ‘isn’t your ferocious teeth or long neck or pointy beak. What makes you special is that of all of the different dinosaurs in the big, wide world, you have the mother who is just right for you and who will always love you.’”

“Mom,” Don said suddenly, looking over to the door. Iris appeared amused when they all turned their attention to her. Before she could say anything, Dawn drowsily but excitedly informed her of the book that their dad just read in between yawns, retelling her bits and pieces and smiling at the fact that they were both the little dinosaur.

Iris walked inside as Barry stood up from the bed. She went over, and Dawn was still stirring, “That makes you the mom dinosaur.”

While Barry tucked Don into bed, Iris did the same with Dawn and putting her glasses on the nightstand.

“I love you, my little dinosaur,” Iris smiled, kissing Dawn on her forehead.

“Love you too,” she replied. Iris then quickly moved over to Don’s bed and she saw his eyes were closing slowly.

“And I love you, my little dinosaur,” she whispered, bending forward and kissing his cheek.

The two walked out, Barry’s arm draped around Iris’s shoulders, and Barry turned off the lights on their way out. He noticed that Dawn was still awake which didn’t surprise him because his daughter was a thinker, especially after story time.

“Goodnight,” she said.

“Goodnight, sweetie,” he replied.


End file.
